The viability of open source forking

“Source code availability is a central factor in establishing
trust in the open source community, as knowledge that the source is
available can often allay fears about the future of a particular
open source project or product. And yet, this trust can often be
overstated.

“When I wrote about a license change to Solaris 10 a few weeks
ago, I consciously chose not to discuss OpenSolaris. At the time,
Oracle was still working through its acquisition of Sun, and I felt
it prudent to give Oracle time to lay out its vision for
OpenSolaris. Although my feelings haven’t changed, based on the
information currently available, questions regarding OpenSolaris
are starting to generate notable discussion.

“To fork or not to fork

“Earlier this week the OpenSolaris mailing list was abuzz over
the lack of information about a forthcoming release, as well as the
overall development model for the open source operating system. Sun
— whose Solaris is a proprietary distribution of the OS — helped
form the OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB). As such, decisions
surrounding OpenSolaris releases and technology road maps have
remained largely within Sun’s control.”

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